Arnab Chakraborty's research concerns critical questions of housing and infrastructure development, and the role of technology in advancing urban analysis and planning. In addition to his academic appointments, he is an editorial board member of the Journal of the American Planning Association and an associate editor of the Journal of Urban Planning and Development. He is also the Dean's Fellow in the College of Fine and Applied Arts with primary roles in research funding administration and advising faculty members seeking external grants.

Professor Chakraborty's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Federal Highway Administration, Urban Institute, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, among others. His ongoing projects include mapping urban vulnerability to climate change, and using scenario analysis techniques to advance long range planning. His current projects are in Champaign-Urbana, Chicago, and India, and involve considerable collaboration with technology companies as well as federal and international organizations.

Professor Chakrabory teaches the following courses on a regular basis: UP 510 Plan Making, UP 547 Regional Planning and Policy, and UP 312 Communication for Planners. He is offering a new online course, UP 433 Scenarios, Plans, and the Future City this summer. Occasionally, he offers UP 543 Environmental Policy and Planning, and study abroad courses. In the past, he has taught Microeconomics of Public Policy and Planning, and GIS. His courses stress the importance of critical thinking and collaboration, and the need to connect techniques learnt in the class to real-world planning situations.

For over fifteen years, Professor Chakraborty has advised and consulted on various land use and transport projects both in the U.S. and abroad. He conducts regular training workshops on scenario analysis at the APA's National Planning Conference, serves on Lincoln Institutes scenario planning expert panel, and has taught short courses internationally, most recently in India, China, Taiwan, Curacao, and the Netherlands.

Prior to his PhD, Professor Chakraborty received a master's degree in urban planning and policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a bachelor in architecture from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. In the past, he has taught at the Johns Hopkins University and worked for the Chicago Transit Authority. At Illinois, Professor Chakraborty is also associated with the Center for Global Studies, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studeis. He is also an affiliate faculty of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and site visitor pool of the Planning Accreditation Board.

Ongoing Research Projects

Advanced scenario planning tool for heat vulnerability and exposure mapping in Chicago (funded by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, with Professor Bev Wilson), http://chicagoheatvulnerability.org/

Connecting social vulnerability to flooding risk and evacuation in Peoria, IL

An evaluation of the influence of zoning and local regulatory environment on housing price and foreclosure risk (funded by the National Science Foundation, abstract)

Employing Big and Open Data in understanding megacities and emergent behavior for resilience planning; currently focused on New York and Mumbai

Bento, A., Lowe, S., Knaap, G. J., and Chakraborty, A. 2009. “Housing Market Impacts of Inclusionary Zoning”, Cityscape (2009) 11:2 7-26 [A version of this article was later included in a book, The Affordable Housing Reader, edited by J. Rosie Tighe and Elizabeth Mueller and published by Routledge in October 2012]